Tackling Textile Mountains: A Collab with Mountain Climbers
- Greener is Cleaner
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
We’re teaming up with Mountain Climbers to make sure clothes don't go to waste. This collaboration focuses on reducing textile waste, redistributing clothing to people in genuine need—through transparent, direct connections. Our partner, Mountain Climbers, is a youth-led climate action organization that focuses on the behind-the-scenes—collecting, sorting, and redistributing donated clothing so it actually goes to people who need it instead of landfills. Seungwoo Oh, the founder of this initiative, explains how this all began. "From just leaving this initiative in a form of ideation, I wanted to decide to implement it to bring not just the [school] community, but also other parts of South Korea," he said. Our collaboration helps make this goal possible.
The Greener is Cleaner & Mountain Climbers collab will include webinars on fast fashion, textile waste, and how small choices can add up. Stay tuned to learn how to make fashion a little kinder to the planet in the coming months. Read on for a quick peek into what our webinar series will cover.
Global Crisis of Textile Mountains
“The climate crisis is not caused by lack of resources, but by the way we extract, consume, and discard them.” António Guterres’s words echo aptly today as the Earth continues to face global warming. As capitalism demands constant demand and resources to fuel the economy, it becomes an entitlement that we drain Earth’s resources. The difficulty in addressing this issue comes from the fact that many consumers today in MEDCs see overconsumption as a given right and not a privilege. It has become a habit where we constantly follow new ephemeral trends, unconcerned of where the waste goes. This behavior has led to the metaphor “textile mountains”.
Textile mountains, as the name describes, is a landfills filled with abandoned clothes. The clothes that we indifferently throw away amount to 92 million tonnes of textile waste annually (RECOVO). Even if we donate them to charities, only 30% are resold, as others are seen as unsellable. These eventually are exported to LEDCs labelled as donations and end up in landfills and garbage patches.
These “textile mountains” don't just take the space of mountains. Its detriments reach far beyond just energy waste. When these discarded clothes end up in the ocean, the microfibre plastics can dissolve and mix into the water, accounting for 35% of plastics in the oceans. Not only does this affect the environment, but microfibers are carried into fish's diets, which impacts us who buy them as well. The pollution also affects local fishers, such as in Jamaica and India, who report not being able to fish as close to the shore(theoceancleanup). Beyond just fishing, the microplastics can clog sewage and create stagnant water pools- an ideal place for germs- affecting LEDCs that lack proper water purifiers.
The obvious solution is to stop wasting all the clothes, as the current waste management system can’t manage or recycle all the clothes. Thus, recycling the old clothes to those who lack this basic necessity is what Mountain Climbers aim to achieve, starting from local communities, to ensure that these garments aren’t irresponsibly thrown away and burnt. Only when our profligate behavior stops will real changes happen, starting with recycling these clothes.
Works Cited
“The Environmental Cost of Fast Fashion: A Closer Look at Textile Waste.” RECOVO, https://recovo.co/en/blog/article/the-environmental-cost-of-fast-fashion-a-closer-look-at-textile-waste. Accessed 29 December 2025.
“How does plastic pollution impact societies?” THE OCEANCLEANUP, https://theoceancleanup.com/faq/how-does-plastic-pollution-impact-societies/. Accessed 30 December 2025.
Igini, Martina. “10 Concerning Fast Fashion Waste Statistics.” Earth.Org, https://earth.org/statistics-about-fast-fashion-waste/. Accessed 30 December 2025.
“Textile Mountain- The Hidden Burden of our Fashion Waste.” textilemountainfilm, https://www.textilemountainfilm.com/about. Accessed 29 December 2025.
“Unsustainable fashion and textiles in focus for International Day of Zero Waste 2025.” UNEP, 27 March 2025, https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/unsustainable-fashion-and-textiles-focus-international-day-zero. Accessed 30 December 2025.
“What’s In Our Clothes and How Does it Affect the Oceans?” Fashion Revolution, Fashion Revolution, https://www.fashionrevolution.org/whats-in-our-clothes-and-how-does-it-affect-the-oceans/. Accessed 30 December 2025.
